The Metaphorization Of English Proverbs And Their Translation

Proverb translation has long been an academic field attracting much attention of translation researchers,who have brought forward multitudinous insightful views and systems.On basis of those intellectual fruits and under a comprehensive observation of English proverbs,this dissertation presents an attempt to probe into English proverb translation from the viewpoint of the metaphorization of English proverbs.Metaphor in its broad sense refers to some kind of conceptualization,a process of understanding and experiencing a semantic domain by virtue of another semantic domain. There exists some mapping from the source to the target semantic domain.A linguistic metaphor turns out to be the realization of this conceptualization in language use,with its tenor,vehicle and ground being liable to be clearly specified as some specific units in a linear structure.An English proverb can also be characterized by metaphor.However,a metaphorical proverb is distinguished from a common linguistic metaphor in that the tenor, vehicle and ground of a metaphorical proverb are three kinds of meanings conveyed by the proverb as a whole instead of some intuitive linguistic units,as follows:Tenor:context-free meaning;Vehicle:context-dependent meanings;Ground:the meaning abstracted from all these meanings,including both context-free and context-dependent meanings.Hence the metaphorization of an English proverb.It should be clarified that not all proverbs are qualified to be metaphorically interpreted.This paper therefore puts forward the distinction between metaphorical and representational proverbs,the latter being those only featuring context-free meaning.Accordingly this thesis advances three approaches for proverb translation,as follows:Translating the tenor;Translating the vehicle;Translating the ground.The application of those three approaches may result in three kinds of renderings,which, as Practice proves,all existing Chinese versions of an English metaphorical proverb invariably can be categorized into.Each kind of translation of an English metaphorical proverb preserves some features of the original while meantime fails to convey some other characteristics.Therefore no absolute equivalence can be established.Instead of the equivalence theory,this dissertation seeks theoretical support from functionalist approaches towards translation in evaluating the three sorts of renderings of an English metaphorical proverb and choosing a translating approach.This thesis consists of five parts.The Introduction part is a lead-in to some basic issues concerning proverb translation as well as a brief road-map of the main ideas the paper is to dissertate in sequence.Chapter One presents an overview of the previous research on metaphors and provides the theoretical foundation for the following delineation of the metaphorization of English proverbs.Chapter Two focuses on the metaphorization of English proverbs but first brings forth a tentative definition of proverb via making clear the differentiation respectively between proverbs and set phrases,proverbs and sayings,and proverbs and maxims.Chapter Three,the core part of the thesis,investigates in detail the translation of English proverbs.Three approaches for proverb translation are advanced,following which factors that need to be considered in choosing an approach are explored.Chapter Four then seeks to solve the problem of choosing a translation approach in real practice by virtue of functionalist approaches towards translation and exemplifies the feasibility of applying functionalist views in proverb translation.The closing part accounts for the conclusion of the dissertation,summarizing what has been specified and pointing out the limitations of present study as well.